Wearing the 1970s

A little while back, Kim Darnell pointed me to several sites with collections of astounding men’s clothing (some underwear, some not) from the 1970s. Culled from a great trove of material, here are six of these gems, with captions added by me.

Let me say that while I indulged in various regrettable items of clothing (including bell bottoms, muscle shirts, and remarkable underwear) during this period, I didn’t reach the heights illustrated here. So I snicker and guffaw, but nervously.

(In earlier postings, mostly on AZBlogX, I took relatively unremarkable vintage men’s fashion ads and perverted them with snarky captions. I’ll inventory these postings at the end of this one. But the ads below are a step beyond; the viewer is moved to gasp, “What could they have been thinking of?”)

The first is from Ah Men, an haut-pédé West Hollywood store that I occasionally actually shopped at and in any case was the source of a catalog, simultaneously fabu and tacky, that enabled men to mail-order its wares up in discreetly labeled packages:

(#1)

The cream dream of
West Hollywood,
The Shiny Dick Boys and
Stephanie, the Goddess of
Balls

On to a tableau of three suited men. You really have to admire them (especially the guy on the right, dressed as a Raging Queer) for going out in public in these costumes:

(#2)

Wait-listed for theSergeant Pepper cover, they
Rashly went into business as
“Secret Agent Who, A
Time Tale in Three Parts”

At least one of those is Parr of Arizona, which at one point was owned by a poker buddy of my godfather.

From the website “Karen Carpenter Died for your Sins” on 1/7/13 “The Clones of Parr of Arizona”:

Much thanks to reader Lamb Cannon for leading me down a rabbit hole of clone clothier Parr of Arizona [in Phoenix], who outfitted all of the butchest queens in leathers and swimsuits. What could be manlier than an animal-print loincloth swimsuit? Nothing.
[with a Parr of Arizona slide show]